Humane Movement

The Humane Movement is a general effort to alleviate or eliminate animal suffering, predominately due to industry or other human intervention. It also includes companion animal issues such as overpopulation, homelessness, neglect and abuse as well as protection of wild life. The humane movement includes rescuing animals and addressing the root causes of animal suffering. For example, many humane advocates are vegetarian and purchase only non-animal tested products.

Issues
For animal rights and welfare issues, see also War on Animals. For animal testing issues, see also animal testing. For animal issues relating to U.S. government subsidies, funding, inspections, animal testing requirements and military testing, see also U.S. Government's War on Animals. For farm animal issues in relation to human health and the environment, see also meat & dairy industry. For commercial dog breeding, see also puppy mills. For U.S. legislation, see also U.S. animal rights legislation.

Animal commerce, public relations & lobbying
Animal commerce refers to the use of animals for commercial and industrial purposes. It includes agribusiness, meat & dairy, processed food, pharmaceuticals, animal testing, breeding, cage and equipment suppliers, puppy mills, the pet industry, animals used for clothing and animals used for entertainment and sports. Media and lobbying which opposes institutionalized animal advocacy is primarily due to commercial interests and perceived threats to profits. The "animal rights vs. welfare" argument, is an obfuscation, since anti-animal lobbies oppose animal welfare as well. For example, Richard Berman and Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) clients have included Phillip Morris, Monsanto, Tyson Foods, Dean Foods and Coca Cola. All have been subjects of campaigns and investigations over animal testing and/or gross welfare violations. See also Richard Berman cares about animals: clients exposed. The National Animal Interest Alliance (NAIA) is an animal commerce lobby and a mouthpiece for the American Kennel Club (AKC). Both organizations lobby against welfare legislation, as does the industry funded American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the Animal Welfare Council (AWC), which lobbies for rodeos, horse slaughter and the Premarin industry. In 2006 the AKC brought in well over $30 million in revenue from registrations. Litters from puppy mills are its largest source of income.

The National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR) and Americans for Medical Progress (AMP) are funded by the pharmaceutical, vivisection, laboratory animal breeding and related industries. Astroturf organizations like these, obfuscate issues of animal abuse and neglect. Lobbyists have fought every reform from the simple walking of dogs to larger cages for primates. Thanks to vivisection industry lobbying, over 90% of all laboratory animals receive no protection under the law. See also NABR & the Animal Welfare Act.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service/Animal Care (USDA/APHIS/AC) is responsible for inspections, reporting and enforcing the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The AWA is the only federal law that regulates animals bred and sold by dealers, animals in entertainment, zoo animals and laboratory animals. Rats, mice, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish are not covered and do not even have to be reported. Even minimal requirements under the AWA are rarely enforced. See also USDA.

Media censorship & apathy
Animal commerce is largely unregulated, with little serious enforcement of what little legal protection exists. Industry downplays the dangers of factory farming, animal products and dangerous pharmaceuticals, which thrive on an unregulated animal testing industry. See also meat & dairy industry. The result is that important animal welfare, medical, safety and environmental issues are shouted down, dismissed and censored. For example, Premarin is derived from pregnant mares’ urine (PMU), and prescribed for "symptoms of menopause". It has been classified as a "dangerous drug" and the number one most likely to cause disability or other serious outcome. Despite the availability of humane and safer alternatives, Premarin is among the most widely prescribed and profitable drugs in America.

The urine is collected from mares confined in barns on over 70 "PMU ranches" in the U.S. and Canada. The industry is "self-regulated" through Pfizer's "Code of Practice". Mares in Premarin production commonly suffer from abrasions, leg swelling, excessive boredom, stress, and early death. Strapped to urine collection bags six months out of the year; they are tied to stalls too narrow to turn around or lie down in and are denied free access to water. There is no minimum code of practice for exercise or even that they be exercised at all. After 8 or 9 years of foaling they are sold to slaughter (normal life expectancy is 20 to 25 years.) Every year thousands of PMU foals are sent to auction and sold to slaughter for meat markets in Europe and Japan. ,

In a shameless bid for public damage control, the company actually prohibited contract PMU ranchers from working with rescue groups. The rationale being that these abused, neglected horses, who along with their foals, are destined for slaughter; do not need to be rescued. In a stunning triumph of censorship and apathy, this global corporation with billions in annual sales, is not criticized in the mainstream media. See also Premarin.

Medicine, drugs, vaccines & animal testing
A landmark article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on April 15, 1998 entitled, "Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients", evaluated serious and fatal adverse drug reactions (ADR)s in U.S. hospitals. The study revealed that in 1994, ADRs accounted for 2,216,000 serious events and 106,000 hospital deaths. According to a 2003 comprehensive study of medical peer-review journals and government health statistics, there are an additional 199,000 fatal ADR outpatient deaths in the U.S. annually. , According to the study, there are approximately 783,936 iatrogenic (medically induced) deaths every year in the U.S. Furthermore, the actual figure is estimated to be much higher, as only a fraction (between 5% and 20%) of iatrogenic acts are ever reported.

Researchers from Harvard and Boston Universities concluded that medical measures (drugs and vaccines) accounted for between 1 and 3.5% of the total decline in mortality rate since 1900. Scores of animals were killed in the quest to find cures for tuberculosis, scarlet fever, small pox and diphtheria. Dr. Edward Kass of Harvard Medical School asserts that the primary credit for the virtual eradication of these diseases must go to improvements in public health, sanitation and general standard of living. Additionally, 88% of doctors queried agreed that animal experiments can be misleading because of anatomical and physiological differences between animals and humans.

Thousands of rats, mice, rabbits, dogs, and primates are killed in "pre-clinical" tests to for new drugs (including all ingredients and even minor differences in formulas). Following an extensive battery of animal testing, drugs generally undergo three phases of clinical trials. The fact that months or years of human studies are also required suggests health authorities do not trust the results. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that 92 out of every 100 drugs that successfully pass animal trials, subsequently fail human trials., See also animal testing, sections 1 through 3.

Vivisectors often claim undue credit for advances in medicine and public health which have no relation to or were even impeded by animal testing, simply due to the fact that animal testing was used (often an unavoidable legal requirement.) Frequently, they will cite animal experiments without disclosing the pioneering previous non-animal discovery. See also pharmaceutical industry.

Medical psychopathy
According to author Hans Ruesch:


 * "Vivisectors have been known to accept with equanimity the allegation of being money grubbers - of doing cruel experiments only to gain money or a professorship. But we have never known a vivisector who bore with equanimity the allegation of being a sadist. They always reacted to all such allegations with frothing, like other psychopaths when they are confronted with the nature of their disorder. If it is a mistake to believe that all vivisectors are sadists, it would be another mistake to believe that sadism is not rampant in the animal laboratories."

According to two brief reports, from millions of published experiments (out of the majority which are never even published):


 * "In the University of Colorado primate laboratory, baby monkeys are stimulated with grief by removing them from mothers, familiar surroundings, etc., and their subsequent poor health is monitored by brain implants, etc. This brutality is funded by $100,000 grant from the NIH."


 * "F.L. Eldridge, D.E. Millhorn and T.G. Waldrop of the Departments of Medicine and Physiology, the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC 27514) subjected an unspecified number of cats to surgery, removing part of their brains, then fastening them in treadmills forcing them to walk with electrodes implanted in what remained of their brains. The animals received no anesthesia, but some were dosed with a paralyzing agent like curare. Result: intact animals respond differently to treadmills."

Crucifying dogs
On May 9,1988, Turin's Stampa Sera scooped the Italian press with a front-page story titled: "They are experimenting on dogs the passion of Christ. Doctors and experts want to demonstrate that the Holy Shroud was stained during Resurrection." The President of the National Animal Protection Society (ENPA) attempted to legally stop experiments on five dogs to "reproduce the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ." The "experiment" was held at a secret location and performed by two clinicians from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome; Prof. Paolo Pola, titular of the Chair of Angiology (blood vessels) and Dr. Augusto Borzone, of the Institute of Clinical Surgery.

Animal & human experimentation
A propaganda line of the vivisection community is that animal testing obviates the necessity of experimenting on humans. As far back as 1912, German physician Dr. Wolfgang Bonn wrote:


 * "The constant spread of the vivisectionist method has achieved but one thing: to increase the scientific torture and murder of human beings. We can expect this increase to continue, for it would just be the logical consequence of animal vivisection."

Such prophetic words were called to mind when in 1984 Dr. Leonard L. Bailey, an unqualified surgeon and vivisectionist with a record of over 300 animal transplants without a single survival; substituted an allegedly defective baby's heart with a baboon's heart. The surgery was performed without anesthesia at Loma Linda Medical Center in California. It was hailed as an "historic breakthrough" and "brilliant feat" by leading American press. Hospital reports revealed that "Baby Fae" endured tortures similar to what millions of animal are subjected to for years on end; for the three remaining weeks of her short life. See also xenotransplantation.

In January of 1987, The Lancet, Britain's most authoritative medical journal reported that open heart surgery was performed on eight premature babies at Oxford's John Radcliffe Teaching Hospital without anesthesia. A brief controversy flared over whether the babies had received pain killers. Press coverage revealed that depriving newborns of anesthesia was "old hat". According to an April 12, 1987 article in Parade Magazine:


 * "Doctors have struggled with the problem for years. At a conference of anesthesiologists held in Palm Springs, California, in 1970, a doctor stated that premature infants did not need anesthesia, just some adhesive tape to hold them down."

The vivisection "debate" & AV movement
See also animal testing, section 6 on vivisection debate & false animal test results & damages caused for more information on the anti-vivisection (AV) movement.

Annual observation days & weeks
Great American Meatout sponsored by Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM) and is the world's oldest and largest annual diet education campaign. On or around March 20th, thousands of people in all 50 states and two dozen other countries host education Meatout events including festivals, lectures, dinners, feed-ins, cooking demos, leafleting and tabling.

World Week for Animals in Laboratories is is a national week of protests and media events focusing on animal testing and the treatment of laboratory animals. It is held around the week of April 24th. ,

Global Boycott Proctor & Gamble Day is sponsored by Uncaged, a United Kingdom based animal advocacy group. It is usually held on the third Saturday of May as part of a worldwide campaign to publicize P&G's animal testing policies and educate consumers about cruelty-free shopping.

Unchain Our World is sponsored by the advocacy group Dogs Deserve Better. For ten days in late June and early July, individuals and groups register to chain themselves to dog houses in public areas (or even their own yards) to draw attention to chained, penned and back yard dogs.

International Day of Action for Dogs and Cats in Korea is co-sponsored by In Defense of Animals (IDA) on July 14. This worldwide event focuses on the suffering of dogs raised for human consumption. IDA works with Coexistence for Animal Rights on Earth (CARE) in South Korea. In South Korea, two million dogs a year are raised, tortured and killed for human consumption. Dogs and cats are forced to live in tiny cages and killed by electrocution, strangulation or bludgeoning. See also War on Animals, section 5.

World Farm Animals Day is sponsored by Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) and In Defense of Animals and is observed on or around October 2nd. It is dedicated to exposing, mourning and remembering the over 55 billion farm animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses. It is observed with activities in all 50 U.S. states and two dozen other countries and marks the birth date of Mahatma Gandhi, a vegetarian.

World Go Vegan Week promotes veganism through outreach events and media from October 25 to 31. Community education focuses on veganism as a compassionate, sustainable, healthy diet and lifestyle. "Veganism enables people to live in balance with all of Earth's creatures and promote freedom from exploitation for animals as part of their everyday lives." Fur Free Friday protests and media events focusing on the cruelties of the fur industry, is held on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It has been an annual event since 1986.

Gentle Thanksgiving is sponsored by Farm Animal Rights Movement. Participants may register their activities with FARM. Events include public and private vegetarian dinners, tabling, leafleting, screenings, etc.

Other campaigns
March of Crimes is sponsored by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The March of Dimes has funneled millions into experiments on primates, rats, mice, cats, dogs, rabbits, pigs, sheep, guinea pigs and opossums. They include nicotine, alcohol and cocaine addiction experiments; sensory deprivation and transplanting organs from one species to another.

In 1990, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that 38 types of birth defects from 1979-80 through 1986-87. During this seven-year period, of the 38 types of birth defects, 29 increased; two decreased; and seven remained stable (meaning they changed less than 2% per year during the period). Approximately 25% of all infant deaths could be eliminated with better pre-natal services. Infant deaths would decrease by 10 to 25% if women gave up smoking during pregnancy. Alcohol abuse during pregnancy is the leading cause of preventable birth defects.

McCruelty to Go. PETA has long campaigned against McDonalds' lack of animal welfare standards, which violate even minimal government standards. After two years of frustrating discussions, PETA launched its international McCruelty to go campaign in 1999. ,
 * "Federal standards require that 100 percent of cows be fully stunned before they are skinned, but (according to) a McDonald’s training video ...it’s acceptable if five cows in every 100 are conscious while skinned and dismembered."

Kentucky Fried Cruelty. A campaign sponsored by PETA called "Kentucky Fried Cruelty", has pressured Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) to drop Tyson Foods as its supplier, due to it's abusive animal practices and resistance to reforms. , See also Tyson Foods & YUM! Brands (parent company of KFC).

The most well known group focusing on Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) is Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC). The SHAC campaign was formed in 1999 by activists who had successfully closed down laboratory animal breeders in the United Kingdom. SHAC is an international campaign with groups in the UK, USA, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and many other countries. They target HLS and global corporations supporting them. HLS has a long history of gross animal welfare violations. See also Huntingdon Life Sciences.

The Protect Seals Network is sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Humane Society International (HSI). Participating organizations represent tens of millions world wide that oppose Canadian seal hunts. Over 5,000 restaurants and grocery stores have joined campaign to boycott Canadian Seafood; including Whole Foods Markets, Ted's Montana Grill, Trader Joe's, BI-LO, WinCo Foods, Harris Teeter, Fresh Market, Oceanaire Seafood Room, Bon Appetit Management Company and Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Cafes. On June 15th, Canada’s 2009 commercial seal slaughter came to an end. Over 72,000 defenseless baby harp seals were killed, almost all of them just weeks of age. See also War on Animals, section 5.

Petland rallies. The HSUS Stop Puppy Mills campaign has held several national demonstrations against Petland's support of cruel puppy mills, in coalition with other humane groups. There are also regular demonstrations held by local groups against this company. See also puppy mills.

Animal rights petitions & boycotts.

Animal rights & protection organizations
This site contains listings for 248 organizations for the United States and Canada by state, city and provinces and 36 listings for other countries.

SourceWatch articles

 * Animal activists who have been injured or killed
 * Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act
 * Animal Liberation Front
 * Animal products & health issues
 * Animal Welfare Institute
 * A Visit to the ActivistCash.Com Web Site
 * Conservatives target the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
 * False animal test results & damages caused
 * Criminalising civil disobedience
 * Farm Sanctuary
 * Friends of Animals
 * Humane Society International
 * Humane Society of the United States
 * Hoffman Family Foundation
 * NABR & the Animal Welfare Act
 * National Institutes of Health
 * National Primate Research Center System
 * People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
 * Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
 * Richard Berman cares about animals: clients exposed
 * Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
 * Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
 * U.S. Department of Agriculture
 * U.S. Food and Drug Administration

External resources

 * USDA Animal Welfare Inspection Reports, U.S. Department of Agriculture, accessed November 2009
 * Resources and Links (includes NIH funding database & USDA reports), Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!, accessed October 2009